Workshops Will Help Define Which Communities Get Cap-and-Trade Funds

By Melanie Curry • Streetsblog California • February 1, 2017

Several public meetings will be held around the state this week to discuss cap-and-trade investments in disadvantaged communities. The California Environmental Protection Agency and the Air Resources Board will host the public meetings starting tonight in Fresno. See below for times and dates, plus webinar details for those who can’t travel to the workshop sites.

CalEnviroScreen ranks communities based on a wide range of factors, including comparative pollution burdens—for example, location near a source of emissions—as well as population characteristics like income and health indicators that make it harder for residents to deal with pollution. Whether those factors are the right ones, and whether they are weighted correctly, has been the subject of ongoing discussions over the last several years.

Another issue to be discussed at the meetings is how project benefits will be assessed. Under A.B. 1550, at least five percent of GGRF funds have to be invested in projects that benefit low-income households or communities, and another five percent in projects that benefit low-income households near communities defined as “disadvantaged” per CalEnviroScreen. But how does one define a benefit to a community? Is it enough, for example, to replace a diesel bus with an electric bus on a line that drives past a disadvantaged community on a nearby freeway, thus reducing local emissions? Or does that electric bus need to directly serve the community with a stop? These questions have been grappled with at other meetings, but there is more grappling to be done.

Comments received at these public meetings will be used by the Air Resources Board to inform its updated funding guidelines for all programs that receive money from the GGRF, from High-Speed Rail to the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program. Over a dozen agencies administer these programs, following the ARB guidelines.

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UpLiftCA was created by The Greenlining Institute in partnership with the California Climate Equity Coalition, led by the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Coalition for Clean Air, The Greenlining Institute, Public Advocates and SCOPE. We work to ensure that California climate policies bring opportunities and investments to California’s underserved communities. We are also indebted to the Natural Resources Defense Council for essential support and partnership.